


The administrative cock-up

by Gaia_bing



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, But also, Eventual Romance, First Meetings, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Not Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-18 14:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14214921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: Steve Rogers absolutely loved his job: punishing those who'd been bad in their lives and rewarding those who'd been good.But, what happens when he meets someone that he just knew doesn't belong inside his waiting line and is being ordered to go where he just knew was the wrong place for the other man?What in the world could he do to stop all of this?





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> So, a brand-new mini story by yours truly! I've been thinking about this one for a while now and it's my first chaptered fic with Skinny Steve as the protagonist! Hope you guys like it. :)

Steve Rogers entered the front door, a bag of fresh chocolate doughnuts in one hand and his briefcase in the other.

  
"Good morning, Mr. Rogers!" the secretary of the place, a brunette woman named Maria, greeted the skinny young man, as she noticed him passing by.

  
Steve, as it was the case every morning, grinned back at her and let her take one of his delicious bakes goods. "Good morning to you too!" he happily called out. Adjusting his glasses and taking his brown paper bag back with him, the blond man chimed: "So, big day ahead?"

  
And Maria, just like every time the young man asked that specific question, pursed her lips together, wiggled her eyebrows and turned over her personal computer over for him to take a looksie...

  
...Yep, today was going to be a big day, _again_.

  
Smiling at the nice secretary once more, Steve wiggled his own eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders as he added: "Welp, that's what you get for taking this kind of job: long lines and long hours ahead. And speaking of which..." he looked at his watch. "If I don't wanna be berated by one of the big guys, I better get to my station and quick. Lunch at the sushi place across the street as the usual hour?"

  
_"You know it!"_

  
With a small wave, the young blond left the front lobby of the building numbered 155-722, that rested inside the district people liked to nickname the _"Y"_ , since it was the last one that had been built to complete the longly-negotiated but highly under-appreciated mega-work project...

  
"Number 7,007,568,838! Number 7,007,568,838 can come in now!" called out Steve through his microphone, a huge banner hanging above his and everyone else's windows reading:

  
_**PURGATORY** _


	2. A not-so normal day at the office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, how did Steve got where he is? Well...

Steven Grant Rogers was born on July 4th. 1988, right on the Independence Day celebrations of the United States. His mother, one Sarah Rogers, loved to joke that if it hadn't been for her water breaking, she just _knew_ she'd won that damn hot-dog eating contest she was partaking in the moment her beautiful baby boy had decided to come into this world.

  
Unfortunately for both Sarah and Steve, their time together on Earth, hell *both* of their entire time on Earth had been quite short: with Sarah developing a savage case of lung cancer a bit after her son had reached the age of legal drinking and releasing her last breath one year later...

  
And Steve, the poor boy, had been born on his part with a weak heart and his own set of sick lungs. He had seen his fair-share of hospital beds, neon lights and nice people in white garments thank you very much.

  
Home-schooled because no one wanted to accept someone with such poor health, never getting a job because he couldn't do anything too strenuous or he'd fall right back where he'd started: on a stretcher on its way to the emergency room, Steve had always felt that he'd never achieved anything worthwhile, especially compared to the people he'd grown to admire over the years, particularly the ones that accomplished good and punished the bad on an almost daily basis...

  
Like the Avengers.

  
Oh, how he'd always dreamed to be one of them, when he saw them form back in the early 2010's: To be able to fly around like Iron Man or Thor, or become a weapon master like Black Widow or Hawkeye, hell even getting into unusual sizes like Ant Man or the Hulk.

  
Being able to do something, _anything_ to help someone, _anyone_ , this was what Steve Rogers had always wanted to do with his life. But unfortunately for him, life or more precisely his frail body had other plans for him...

  
The pneumonia season had been quite the bitch that year and Steve had become so accustomed to getting that particular sickness whenever Winter came knocking, that it was almost a miracle whenever he passed through the three harsh and chilly months illness-free.

  
And maybe this one had just been the one time too many, Steve told himself whenever he thought about what had happened during that cold December. Maybe his body just couldn't take one more bad thing happening to it and that had sealed the deal right there.

  
Whatever the reason, he knew two things: he was buried on a freezing Friday morning, right next to where his mother had been resting for the past couple of years and two...

  
Life in the Upstairs was boring as fuck.

  
_"Steven! Language!"_ Sarah admonished her son as she poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat on the other side of the breakfast table.

  
The Upstairs and the Downstairs, that's how people from here liked to call Heaven and Hell, so that no offense was committed when people of other religions came around.

  
Whatever that each place liked to be called, it always worked the same way: if you'd been good during your Earthly life, you went Upstairs, where you could spend the rest of Eternity with the people that you loved and had lost. Just like Steve tearfully accepted to do, when he'd noticed his mother had been waiting for him all of this time, right there at the edge of the long, white set of stairs. And life with his mother in this paradise had been great so far, do not misunderstood him, it's just that...  
"I'm sorry mom, I know I shouldn't swear and everything, it's just that I've been getting ants in my literal pants and I don't know what to do with myself!" explained Steve, munching his spoonful of Wheaties goodies. "I mean, I love you and I'm going to be forever grateful to be able to spend time with you as much as I want these days, but..."

  
His mother understood on the spot. "You want to do something with your ten fingers and ten toes?" she finished for him.  
Steve nodded, looking down a little bit guiltily. "Especially now that I don't have my heart and my breathing as obstacles standing in my way. I mean, there has to be _something_ that I could do around here beside lying on a cloud all day?"

  
A gentle finger made him look back up. "Don't worry, son, I absolutely understand what you're saying. And while I'm perfectly content just enjoying my time with my sisters and my own parents, I always knew you were more of the action kind. That you wanted to help people get to their right direction. So this is why...

  
Smiling her secret smile that she'd always used whenever something great was on her mind, Sarah closed her eyes as a newspaper seemingly appeared inside the cradle of her arms. "Since everyone here is perfectly content and no one needs any kind of help and I _really_ don't wanna see you go Downstairs in any capacity, because hello, all of the bad people and the simple fact that I wouldn't be able to see you anymore, I've been searching around a bit and I think I've found you something to do, if you're interested of course."

  
Now this peaked Steve's interest. Grabbing the piece of paper his mother had just brandished to him, his eyes squinted as he began to read...

  
**************

  
"So that's how you ended out here?" said Maria, taking her last bit of rice and shrimps and stuffing her face with it.

  
Steve smiled as he finished his story and his sushi burrito: "Yep. And since the Upstairs is heavenly and the Downstairs is devilish, Purgatory is pretty much as close to the life on Earth I've always dreamed of, but could never accomplish due to my weak body and everything else that came along with it. And on top of that, I can still see my mom whenever I want to! I mean, that, plus the fact that I can actually help people the way they're meant to be helped: reward those that have lead a good life and punish those that have lead a bad one. Tell me, what more could someone like me possibly want?"

  
Maria shook her head and smiled as she answered: "Not much, I'll tell you that." Looking at her watch, she added: "And I don't know about you, but if we both want to keep helping people the way they're meant to be helped, we better skedaddle and quick. 'Lunch break is over."

  
"Alright, alright, I'm up, I'm up." Steve said as he stood from his seat and left a twenty alongside the secretary's.

  
But this was all superfluous stuff, as eating and currency had no value in this place. It was just all just an illusion so that the people working here felt like they were at home, like they were somewhere as neutral as Earth had always been. So that they didn't decide to leave in the middle of their shift and go back to where they'd once came from. But it was all voluntary, of course, no one was a slave in this place. Everyone here loved what they did and everyone harbored the desire to led lost souls into their fated direction. It was just the motive behind that particular decision that changed from employee to employee, for the better or the worse...

  
Shaking his head, Steve tried to get the bitter after taste that had suddenly appeared inside his mouth. No need to dwell on some recent administrative decisions, ones that he wasn't so sure about. After all, all that mattered out here was doing a good job and not the people that was doing said good job.

  
Speaking of which...

  
"7,007,568,845! You can come in now!" he called out through his microphone.

  
A nervous-looking woman approached his window, a look of uneasiness written all over her features.

  
Steve looked at his computer monitor, where her Life File was being displayed for him. "Ah, Mrs Enders! Born in 1956, died in 2013. Wow, you've been waiting in line for quite a while here!" Looking at his Earth Clock, he nodded when the year 2092 confirmed his suspicions. But trust me, from what I'm seeing over here, you don't have anything to worry about. You've lead a healthy and very good life. While that attempt at shop-lifting when you were 16 is probably what lead you here in the first place, you didn't commit any major crimes or anything unforgivable of the sorts, so you're not going to be going to the bad place, I can tell you that."

  
With a grateful smile and a green stamp that read "Upstairs" on her Afterlife Application, Mrs. Enders went on her destined way, making Steve proud for the umpteenth time that same day.

  
Noticing the lateness of the day and knowing that he was probably going to have to do some over time, Steve leaned his head to take a look over who was left inside his line...

  
A young girl,

  
A teenage boy,

  
A twenty-something couple,

  
A goat,

  
Bucky Barnes...

  
... _What in the_?

 


	3. Is that?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There had to be some mistake here, because there was no way that Bucky Barnes was standing there...
> 
> Waiting inside Purgatory when he should already be making his way to Upstairs right this moment...

Steve took off and checked his glasses, trying to see if they had some hidden smudge or crack that had made him see things that weren't really what they seemed.

  
Because after all, there was no way in the world that James Buchanan Barnes, the greatest hero that the Avengers had ever known, would not have been given an express ticket at the Upstairs the moment his Earthly life had expired...

  
And there was no way that Captain America himself, the greatest defender of truth and justice there ever was (and quite possibly the hottest man Steve had ever seen), would _ever_ spend a single second out here, because there had never been even an iota of hesitation about his afterlife destination.

  
Bucky Barnes had never done a single wrong thing in his life and Steve should know, he'd consumed everything (and still consumed everything) that was out there about his favorite Avenger ever since he'd joined the team.

  
So yeah, what he'd just seen had been wrong, because there was no way in h-

  
_"Well, well, well, look who've we got here."_ came a voice and the sound of hands rubbing together just beside him, making Steve turn his head and groan internally.

  
Brock Rumlow, that **son** of a _bitch_.

  
His recent hiring had been a part of one of the recent administrative decisions Steve hadn't been 100% okay with.

  
The "Y", just like in every decision that affected this particular realm, had been the last to finally cave. The influx of people coming from Upstairs wasn't satisfying their worker needs, thus the Big Guy that decided things up there had agreed, after a lot of nagging from the Big Guy Downstairs of course, to let some of his people come to and fill the labor shortage the Purgatory was currently suffering from.

  
And unfortunately for Steve, one of these newcomers was one Brock Rumlow, a smug and spiteful man who only cared for quantity and not quality, which meant here that he liked the sound of his stamp hitting a piece of paper over the soul that ended up in the destination he ended up sending them to, not even checking his clients in the face and passing them as fast as a cashier would pass over canned goods at a grocery store.

All the while bragging about his always-growing company records of how much people he'd sent over in one day and blah, blah, blah, making Steve silently shake his head whenever he heard one of his infamous speeches.

  
But, company decisions were company decisions and even though Steve disagreed with Brock's hiring, he really couldn't do much about it because besides maybe making some questionable destination decisions, Brock had never made any sort of trouble ever since he'd first started working here...

  
That was, until now it seemed.

  
It was at that moment that Steve realized that, in his stupor at seeing one Bucky Barnes standing there, all of the people before the short and brown-haired man had already passed and that he'd taken none of them at his own window.

  
And that the goat was now standing there, glaring at him with its itty beady eyes.

  
And Bucky was now standing in front of Brock's window, the goateed man adorning a smirk while the stubbly man adorned a frown.

  
Still in complete shock at what was happening before him, Steve didn't move a muscle as he witnessed the entire thing...

  
"As I said before: Well, well, well, just look who's standing in front of me after all this time." declared Brock after calling out the other man's number.

  
"And look who I still don't give a flying fuck about even after all this time...how are you here, Brock? Did the devil give you a respite because you sucked his cock or something?" asked the former Captain America.

  
Hang on...Brock and Bucky knew one another? _How in the world was this possible?_ , Steve thought to himself.

  
"Hardy-har-har, still the comedian I see." sarcastically retorted Brock. "But to answer your question, my dear Buck, as your friends liked to call you so dearly, I in fact work here and I'm doing the same job as everybody else's that works in this building. All legal, all transparent. Speaking of which..."

  
Brock did then the one thing he pretty much never did during his shift, he checked out Bucky's Earth file.

  
"Wow, I do say...Captain America, is it? You've got quite the resume with all the good that you did during your second life." he commented, raising his eyebrows in mock proudness and making Steve lower his own.

  
_Second life? What in the world was Brock talking about?_ Steve once again thought.

  
"I'm sure you've got quite the case here for you to go Up the Stairs, as they like to say around here." continued Brock and Bucky suddenly raised a hand.

  
"Brock..." he started.

  
But the man in question ignored him. "But you see, I'm one of the only people that also knows about your first life, you know, the one the you kept hidden from your so-called friends and the rest of the world while you were playing the wholesome-hero guy? You know, before you re-baptized yourself Captain America and you actually were doing some good in the world by working for us?" asked Brock with a sneer now appearing over his face.

  
W-working for _us_? But Brock had worked for Hydra when he'd been alive...that's why he'd been Downstairs all this time before coming up here...

  
Did...did that mean that...

  
Bucky had worked for _Hydra_ once upon a time?

  
This couldn't be true...there had to be...

  
"Which is why for once, I'm actually going to enjoy this particular moment for a much as I can..." finished Brock and with a returning grin, he slowly, almost dramatically...

  
Stamped lines of red that, when lined up together, could read _"Downstairs"_   inside his client's Afterlife application.

  
And Steve could only stand there, not still quite believing what he was seeing, as a dejected Bucky Barnes walked away from Brock's window, his application hanging lifeless between the tips of two of his metal fingers, towards his allotted destination.

  
There...there was some kind of mistake here...Steve constantly told himself. There _had_ to be.

  
Looking at the chain around his neck, Steve felt his hands harden into twin fists.

  
Something was wrong here and he was going to get to the bottom of it...

  
Even if it meant doing something he'd never thought he'd had to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever seen or played Papers Please? Yeah, I deliberately took some inspiration out of that particular game to show how Purgatory worked in this story.


	4. Interference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Purgatory worker's gotta do what a Purgatory worker's gotta do.

"Maria? We've got a code 34. I need your key and quick!" panted Steve as he pretty much slided his way onto the office lobby, nearly giving the poor secretary a goddamn heart-attack.

  
"Wait...what? What's going..." stammered out Maria, completely confused by what was going on, but still handing over her key onto Steve's extended palm and following him down a set of halls she'd never set foot in all of her time here, which was not a lot, if she was being honest here.

  
Steve's words came in short sets of words, running way too fast to complete his sentences...

"Bucky Barnes...my line...Brock...sent him down...mistake...has to..."

  
"Ahah!" he added when he spotted his destination, a blue and windowed door that could read at its front:

  
_"Extensive Earth File Reviewing"_

  
He took a glance at Maria, who was heaving for breath right next to him in front of the door.

  
"Ready?" he asked, brandishing the key that he'd unchained from around his neck.

  
Only nodding, the brown-haired woman inserted her own key inside its allotted slot and together, on the count of three...

  
Steve and Maria unlocked the door and went in to, hopefully, correct the cock-up that had apparently been made.

  
*************

  
"Come on, there has to be something in here that can help us!" cried out Steve in frustration as he re-winded the footage.

  
In this room, time had no effect. Well, time had no effect neither when it came to Purgatory itself, but here, it pretty much stood still, to give anyone that came here the amount that they needed to perform a code 34:

  
When a Purgatory Reviewer thought a soul had been given the wrong destination.

  
This gave them the time and the access to review absolutely _everything_ the soul in question had done in his or her life, unlike the abridged version their Earth File usually showed them.

  
And this was exactly what Steve was doing at this very moment, going from when Bucky had passed away, up until...

  
Until...

  
Oh.

  
Oh _god_.

  
Steve could only gawk in horror as he saw what he'd thought had been a wholesome and good man...

  
Kill,

  
Slaughter,

  
Massacre,

  
Snipe,

  
Eliminate,

  
...Pretty much _murder,_

  
So many **innocent** people.

  
In reverse the footage rolled, showing the now long-haired man indiscriminately use a knife, a gun, heck pretty much anything in his possession to coldly exterminate anyone and anything standing in his way. A red star on a steel metal arm Steve had never seen before, a empty look inside his adulthood crush's eyes he'd never wanted to look at ever again. In fact Steve didn't, lowering his eyes in consternation and sadness.

  
What...what the hell was this?

  
Had...had Steve been wrong all along?

  
Had...had Brock been right all this time?

  
Was James Buchanan Barnes...meant to go Downstairs... after all-

  
"Steve, look!" Maria's cry cut off the blond man's depressed thoughts and with a prepared wince, he dared looking up at the footage rotating in front of him...

  
And found himself face-to-face with Bucky's salvation.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things in the Afterlife are finally settled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And my mini-story is done! *And* in time for Infinity Wars on top of it! :)
> 
> Hopefully by next week, I'll get inspired again thanks to the movie to write a little something about it. :)

Bucky Barnes sighed as he followed the line of as-miserable-as-him people.

  
So, this was it.

  
Even after all of the good he'd tried to accomplish in the world, even after all of the people he'd saved during his so-called "second life", even after what he'd thought had been a pretty good attempt at redemption...

  
This really was the place was he was going.

  
Well, he shouldn't have been surprised that this ended up being his fate, when he really thought about it.

  
Because after all, even after the therapy he'd done to try and get rid of the blame he'd kept hitting himself with ever since all of his memories had returned, and before he'd reinvented himself as the supposed hero he's always always wanted to be, he couldn't escape one fact...

He'd been what people had called a ghost story...

  
He'd been responsible for over two dozen assassinations in over 50 years...

  
He'd been the Winter Soldier.

  
And the Winter Soldier right now,

  
"Name?"

  
"James Buchanan Barnes." 

  
"Come this way, please."

  
Was going to go where he'd always belonged.

  
He was about to make his first step onto the long, dark flight of stairs that went way, _way_ downwards...

  
When he heard a voice suddenly cry out:

  
**_"WAIT!!!"_ **

  
And a man, the cute, thin man with the glasses that Bucky had seen standing next to Brock Rumlow up there, back at the place that looked like a goddamn DMV line, suddenly ran out, and with heaving breaths, stood between his form and his attempt at descending the stairs.

  
"You're making a big, big mistake there, pal!" the small man in front of him panted out.

  
"N-no I'm not." contradicted Bucky in response.

  
"Y-yes you are. You're not meant to go down there." the man, whose name was shining in silver letters on his white and pocketed shirt (Steve, what a beautiful name), retorted as he pointed towards Bucky's fated destination.

  
Some voices began to be heard behind the two, slowly growing in frustration.

  
_"Hey!"_

  
_"Would you hurry up?"_

  
_"Some people have got to move over here!"_

  
_"Beat it, Office guy!"_

  
Throwing his hands up in apology, Steve calmly retorted: "Sorry, sorry." And with a yank, tried to get Bucky out of the way from Downstairs onto a more favorable place...

  
If the man in question had in fact accepted to move an inch.

  
"Look, I don't know what you're trying to do here, but my papers clearly state that I'm supposed to go down there." Bucky explained as he showed Steve the proof that he was indeed meant to go to hell.

  
But Steve only shook his head in response: "And I'm telling you that the person that approved this is one heartless, vindictive bastard who saw what you did with your life compared to what he did with his own and took out his revenge when he saw that you were standing in the Purgatory line, which was an administrative cock-up in the first place. Because I've used a code 34..."

  
"...The fuck's a code 34?" could only ask Bucky.

 

 _"Language!"_   shockingly cried the line of people behind them.

  
And that was made the pair finally stir a bit to the left to get them all to shut up and move along.

  
"As I was saying..." continued Steve, adjusting his glasses on the tip of his nose and pulled out a collection of papers of his own. "I used a code 34 and I inspected your entire life and I saw...this..."

  
He then showed the picture of something Bucky thought he'd dreamed about: a chair, looking like it come right from a dentist office, was lying there along with a mixture of appliances and instruments he'd didn't even know the names of.

  
"Hydra, the group that Brock said you worked for, they brainwashed you. You were under their control this entire time. Whenever you did their bidding, it wasn't you that did them, it was someone else, something else. The Winter Soldier wasn't Bucky Barnes, _isn't_ Bucky Barnes. Bucky Barnes is the one that changed his life after being liberated. Bucky Barnes is that one that _conciously_ decided to turn his fate and his life around. Bucky Barnes is the one that decided to do some good in the world, despite all the while thinking that he was a monster. Bucky Barnes is my hero, he's everyone's hero, despite all of the guilt that he's been carrying for all of this time. This guilt is what brought you over to Purgatory in the first place, it's what brings everyone standing inside that line in the first place. When your fated destination isn't the Downstairs, but the Upstairs." he explained, pointing his index finger up to the ceiling.

  
"So, please, Mr. Barnes, you have to understand, this whole thing has been one giant mistake and if you'll come with me, I'll show you the way towards where you're meant to..." Steve finished and was about to move once more when he noticed...

  
Bucky shaking his head once more.

  
"Please, Bucky!" he finally called out. "After what I just told you, you still can't be thinking that you're meant to go..."

  
Bucky crossed his arms as he responded: "What if I don't wanna go Upstairs, like you like to call it?"

  
W- _what_?

  
"What?" was all Steve could ask, bewildered.

  
Bucky raised his eyebrows as he asked: "What if I'm not meant to go to one place, but I don't wanna go to the other place either?"

  
"What do you mean exactly by that?" demanded Steve, now completely confused.

  
"Well, Steve, those people in line over there?" the former Winter Soldier/Captain America explained as he pointed over to the line he'd thankfully gotten out of, "I heard them talk about some job opportunities..."

**************

  
**An undetermined amount of time later...**

  
"So, this is your computer. Every time someone comes to your window, they're going to show you their Afterlife Application." explained Steve, looking over Bucky's shoulder.

  
"Number 1,000,963,789 can come over now!" called out the metal-armed man, just like he'd learned thanks to his brand new supervisor. And he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow when a brown and grey elephant stomped its way and making Steve chortle in response.

  
"So, Mrs. Bigsby, I presume?" asked Bucky and making him laugh when he received a blare in response.

  
From his spot over the other side of the long, long room, Brock Rumlow was fuming...

  
"If I hadn't been so rudely demoted and that son of a bitch hadn't taken my place, I'd stamped that damn animal already instead of being a couple of slow-pokes like these two bastards over there!" he cried out.

  
And only received yet another set of crumbled-up balls of paper at his form in response. Ones that he would have to pick up and put in his janitorial cart...

  
_Again_.

  
And from over their spot, after sending Mrs. Bigsby on her rightful way, Bucky couldn't help but look up as he finally gathered up his guts and asked:

  
"Say Steve?"

 

"Hmm?"

  
"I spotted this sushi place right down the street and I was wondering..."

  
"I'd love to!"

 

"Really?"

 

  
"Really."

  
"G-good, that's good to know."

  
"Yeah, it really is good to know."

  
Bucky smiled.

  
Steve smiled right back.

  
And they both realized at that particular moment...

  
That maybe you didn't need to go Upstairs to feel like you're in Heaven.

  
And Sarah, when she'd end up visiting her son later on, would gladly see as she finally met this mysterious new boyfriend that he liked to talk about so much these days...

  
That she'd indeed made the right decision to send her son to his fated destination after all.


End file.
